Ridin' the wave

This is me.  I could critique myself until you swore to never read this blog again.  How I wish I was a confident person.  Inside.  I can play confident on the outside, but on the inside I am usually dying.

Three months shy of 39.  Two-and-a-half years into regular therapy and I am still ridin' the wave.  The waves of ups and downs.  Days where I can run though this house and clean, then write, then blog, and by 5 I've done more then I have in the weeks before.  Then there are the days where I'm lucky if I shower.  I try to make sure no one else is affected by my waves, but sometimes they catch on.  I just hope that by laying it all out here again tonight I can put it to rest for tomorrow.  A day with so much promise, and so much to do.

A Lifetime Ago

Yesterday I returned to my Alma Mater with my husband and two daughters.  It seems a lifetime has passed since I roamed the grounds at Central Michigan University.  It's surreal that I even lived there for three years, it's as if I watched it all on TV and it was all the adventures of someone else.

Much is the same about CMU.  Yes, there are a few new stores, and yes there is a Starbucks.  I sniffed it out :)  But many of the old familiar haunts are no longer there, starting with the two apartment buildings I inhabited. 

When I returned to college in January 1994 I lived in an on-campus apartment.  I was free of the dorms but I was still on-campus.  So my rent came out of my financial aid, all other utilities were included and I could walk to class if my car took a crap.  The first of those two apartments was torn down after I lived in it (ha ha, shut up) to make room for a new music building.  The second apartment I lived in for two years, and it has since been removed to make room for a library expansion.  It's hard to point to a parking lot and explain to your 10 and six-year-old daughters "that's where Mommy lived".

We also drove by Robinson Hall where I spent the Fall of 1992 missing my boyfriend and working hard on that 1.29 grade point average. "I want to see where you slept,"  Jayden said.  Well honey, I'm thinking the teenage girl or boy who now lives in that room won't appreciate me showing up with my grouchy husband and two kids to take a look around the 12 X 12 space.  So no, wave to the building we're moving on...

Sundays were always quiet in Mt. Pleasant.  The campus is a hungover ghost town and not much is going on.  We were there for the CMU Girls Soccer game, and our girls, along with their teammates got to spend half time on a college soccer field.  They loved it.  I loved it.  The air was crisp, the sun intermittent, and I found myself hoping that one of my girls follows her Mom and becomes a Chippewa herself.  Hopefully one with a scholarship.  It was a new feeling for me, the pride of passing on a legacy to my kids.  And joy for sharing my pre-them life with them.  Of course I didn't point out the store where I bought the 3 for $5 forties, or the bar where I got smashed on my 22nd birthday and how I may not have been their Mom if I hadn't found a different ride home that night.  But I did show them Moore Hall, my second home at college.  It's a good thing that building can't talk, and I did show them where their Dad would take me to dinner when he would come to visit. 

Then as we contemplated having Pixie for dinner, or perhaps Taco Boy, my girls fell asleep in the back seat of the car and we decided to head on home.  Someday they will understand it more, and someday I will own it more and realize that all those good times were mine.

Age and Fashion Tolerance

Once upon a time I made fun of ladies like me. The women who came into the store where I worked in sweatpants, with messy hair and mascara under their eyes. "I just needed to run in for a few things" they would say, and in my mind I was saying "There ain't no way I am ever gonna leave the house looking like that!" Yeah well, never say never.

A few mornings a week I take Jayden to daycare/preschool after Ryann gets on the bus. I see no need to shower and get pretty before performing this task. I will brush my teeth and try to arrange my hair so it's not standing straight up, but other than that I don't feel that anything more is necessary. I am not trying to impress anyone. This wouldn't be so bad if Jayden's school was the only place I went. Because honestly I'm really not the only Mom there that looks like they walked off of Glamour magazine's "Don't" page. At least I usually have jeans on and not Christmas themed pajama bottoms. Unfortunately in addition to my fashion ignorance I also have a serious Starbucks addiction and I usually "run in" to the local Target for my "fix" before returning home. And while I may have jeans on they are usually joined by my Hot Pink fuzzy Crocs, the shirt I slept in, and a coat to cover up the fact that I am not supported in a certain area. Yeah. Sexy.

I remember the first time I went to the movies in sweats. I had given birth to my first child a few weeks earlier and I HAD to get the hell out of the house. It was early November and my clothing choices were limited so I wore the biggest sweatshirt I owned and sweatpants. I also wore my Nikes in case anyone wanted to assume I had just come from working out. I sat in the theater, approximately six weeks post partum and wondered "What the hell have I become?" Sure, growing up I didn't read Vogue in eighth grade like my BFF Jenny. I was more concerned with getting Kirk Cameron to marry me than perfecting eyeshadow application in that trendy pink-yellow-blue combination. But I did have some standards. I had some level of what I felt was acceptable. But as a new mother just happy to be free to watch Ben Affleck for two hours, and now as a mother of two trying to get everyone where they need to be so I can get on with my day, I couldn't care less.

OK, I'll admit I do care what one person thinks. Someone who loves me unconditionally but does have their own standards about what is acceptable. Someone who feels awesome in the perfect outfit. So when Jayden asks "Mom, why are you wearing your pajamas to my school?" I have to revisit Stacy's book of do's and don'ts and promise my five year old I will never wear sweats to drop her off again.